Hiking
We hiked both in Arista and Syros in Greece. Arista in Northern Greece is near the Albanian border. Arista is a small village located in the Zagori municipal district in or near the National Park of Vikos on about 32,000 acres. The area is filled with alpine meadows, huge mountains, forests, rivers and wildlife. We stayed in the Arista Mountain Resort and the helped set up the activities making things easy for us. The Resort was special due to the fine qualities and amenities of the hotel: indoor pool, sauna, reading rooms and quality or rooms as well as fine dinning in a beautiful setting near the small village as well as the many activities provided. The hotel is designated by National Geographic as a “Unique Lodge of the World”.
From the Hotel of Arista we hiked in Vikos National park. The typical hike was a day hike of about 3-4 hours and it was hiking on beautiful trials with incredible scenery. While In Arista we hiked in the Vikos national park
The start of a great day
getting into the wilderness by crossing stone bridges
hiking through dry river beds
and crossing over small rivers again on stone bridges
for lunch we would stop in some of the small villages along the way
and sipped the local alcohol
our guides provided exception lunches
one day we hiked to a secret waterfalls
and we hiked to a historical village that our guides father lived in way back in the 1920’s
now a historical site. then we hiked home
Some of the gorges we hiked through or up to
From here we traveled to Syros and hiked that island. It was far less mountainous but it was great fun and a typical hike was about 2-4 miles. Upon arrival onto Syros we hiked almost everyday One hike started us from a trail head from a deserted home
This was a 4 mile hike out and back
We ended at a cliff. I climbed partway down the cliff to get this photo of the group above .
Another day (Hike number 3) we took a boat to a deserted beach and hiked to the summit on a 4 mile trek and view was stunning. On the way up below
Hike number (3) at the summit and view from the top= wow is all I can say what a hike
We concluded with an incredible sunset
Another day hike we hiked to the lighthouse . The ladies getting pumped
Starting out being led by Alexandria
At the lighthouse party up
Our first hike was directly behind our home which took us to a cross on the top of the mountain. Leaving the home below on way to summit with cross
at the summit looking aver the village below
Various shots from different days below
and took us out to a point on a cliff .
We used both companies for hiking: Hellas Trekking and Bikewise and they both did a great job with various shots